edthecynic
Censored for Cynicism
- Oct 20, 2008
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Mr. Duke, who as a small boy begged his mother to buy him a piano after she took him to see Duke Ellington, began playing professionally at a time when many musicians were interested in blending genres. He played in a trio that backed the singer Al Jarreau while he was still a teenager, then accompanied Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz musicians at clubs in San Francisco. By the early 1970s he had performed and recorded with Adderley, the jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and Zappas Mothers of Invention. (His long stint with Zappa included an appearance, with the rest of the band, in the feature film 200 Motels.)
Zappa told me one day that I should play synthesizers, Mr. Duke wrote on his Web site. It was as simple as that! Urged by Zappa, he said, he experimented with a few types of synthesizers before settling on the ARP Odyssey, purely to be different from Jan Hammer, who was playing the Minimoog. Mr. Hammer was a member of the guitarist John McLaughlins Mahavishnu Orchestra, one of the first jazz-rock fusion bands to achieve widespread success.
As a leader, Mr. Duke focused in the middle and late 1970s on groove-oriented funk. His versatility also made him a sought-after collaborator. Working in Rio de Janeiro in 1979, he recorded one of his best-known albums, A Brazilian Love Affair, with the singers Milton Nascimento and Flora Purim. He also worked with other major names in fusion, including the drummer Billy Cobham, with whom he was co-leader of a band in the 1970s, and the bassist Stanley Clarke, with whom he formed the Clarke/Duke Project in 1981.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DELcPiBJjk0]GEORGE DUKE~SOMEDAY - YouTube[/ame]
Zappa told me one day that I should play synthesizers, Mr. Duke wrote on his Web site. It was as simple as that! Urged by Zappa, he said, he experimented with a few types of synthesizers before settling on the ARP Odyssey, purely to be different from Jan Hammer, who was playing the Minimoog. Mr. Hammer was a member of the guitarist John McLaughlins Mahavishnu Orchestra, one of the first jazz-rock fusion bands to achieve widespread success.
As a leader, Mr. Duke focused in the middle and late 1970s on groove-oriented funk. His versatility also made him a sought-after collaborator. Working in Rio de Janeiro in 1979, he recorded one of his best-known albums, A Brazilian Love Affair, with the singers Milton Nascimento and Flora Purim. He also worked with other major names in fusion, including the drummer Billy Cobham, with whom he was co-leader of a band in the 1970s, and the bassist Stanley Clarke, with whom he formed the Clarke/Duke Project in 1981.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DELcPiBJjk0]GEORGE DUKE~SOMEDAY - YouTube[/ame]
